I'm a newbie to it, but I've been enjoying playing in RTTY contests a good deal lately. I've been using FLDIGI, which I really like. JUst now--not quite 5 hours before WAE RTTY starts--I realized that I don't think FLDIGI supports the QTC feature. (Or am I wrong and I've just never seen it?)

So now I'm wondering: Use FLDIGI's logger, which I'm familiar with, and log QTCs by hand? Or install N1MM when I get home from work, and hope I can configure it to work with my FLDIGI install, so the QTCs can be logged automatically?

But for a RTTY test, really you want MMTTY and/or 2Tone (mentioned elsewhere on the page I link to above).

I highly recommend parallel use of MMTTY and 2Tone decoders. I did this in CQ WW RTTY and was very happy.

N1MM's QTC support is very very good. I think it will work with any of the above-named RTTY engines including FLDIGI.

When doing QTC in WAE RTTY, you want to pick the loudest best signals to exchange traffic with, and avoid doing it with marginal conditions or stations. You probably already know bands/conditions/directions/times where your station is above average - this is where you want to do QTC's.

Google "WAE RTTY QTC" and you will find videos and tutorials about it. Every time WAE comes around I have to remind myself how it works. It's semi-intuitive, it sounds harder than it actually is. When copying RTTY traffic, I know the MMTTY window allows a cut-and-paste line by line, or groups of lines, to the QTC window, and that's pretty nifty. It's likely it works very similarly with FLDIGI decoder window but I haven't done that combo myself.

Tim, thanks for the advice--it makes perfect sense, but I wound up having less spare time this weekend than I thought, so I'm sticking with FLDIGI by itself so far. Which you may have seen just now--I worked DF5A on 10m RY just after you did.

I'm a newbie to it, but I've been enjoying playing in RTTY contests a good deal lately. I've been using FLDIGI, which I really like. JUst now--not quite 5 hours before WAE RTTY starts--I realized that I don't think FLDIGI supports the QTC feature. (Or am I wrong and I've just never seen it?)

So now I'm wondering: Use FLDIGI's logger, which I'm familiar with, and log QTCs by hand? Or install N1MM when I get home from work, and hope I can configure it to work with my FLDIGI install, so the QTCs can be logged automatically?

What's a boy to do?

Using the "View" "Controls" "Rig control & Contest" reveals a great big block for the exchange. Why not type it in there??? That's what I do. There isn't a dedicated field for QTC.

I say use a contest program for contests. I have a few digital programs but they are general purpose, and not designed for contesting. They can be made to work but I think using a dedicated contest program is just the better way to go. RCKLog is another free contest program that fully supports WAE and QTC's. Win-Test and Writelog are 2 contesting programs but not free. I really enjoy sending and receiving QTC's and N1MM makes it so easy.

I say use a contest program for contests.... I really enjoy sending and receiving QTC's and N1MM makes it so easy.

That sounds like good advice! Though I put it off until WAY too late, unfortunately. I wound up only making a few dozen contest contacts (thanks, Tim N3QE!)--the weekend was busier than I expected. I'll be better prepared next time.

Generically http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_code , it is saying "I have traffic for you" or asking "Do you have traffic for me?", followed by a count of messages. In some sense it means the count of messages, and other senses it also means the message or group of messages, and in other senses it is saying you have traffics to send or want to receive traffics. Sort of like how "Consist" means either a list of cars, or the count of cars, in a train in railroading.

In WAE, it means sending/receiving traffic (consisting of previously logged QSO time, call, and serial) for additional points.

In WAE SSB and CW, non-EU stations send QTC's to EU. In WAE RTTY, QTC's can be exchanged with other continents, either direction.

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